Brunswick Pinova plant catches fire

Lily Pruitt

Asst. News Editor

On April 16, 2023, the Pinova plant in Brunswick, Georgia, caught on fire, causing evacuations in the surrounding areas. Many GC students are from the area.

The plant caught fire around sunrise, which posed no immediate concern. The fire reignited hours later which prompted a shelter-inplace for a one-mile radius surrounding the plant. The shelterin-place then spread to surrounding areas as far as St. Simons Island.

The Brunswick Fire Department is not equipped to handle fires of this magnitude, resulting in surrounding counties bringing in their units, as well as Savannah and Jacksonville bringing units.

“I think they handled it fairly well,” said Ryan

Brewer, a sophomore criminal justice major. “They got the evacuation orders out fairly quickly, and the Red Cross station was useful and helpful for those who had to leave their houses.”

Fortunately, there were only six employees in the plant at the time of the explosion, and they were all accounted for.

The cause for concern which forced the evacuations was the resin and other chemicals that the plant uses that could have contaminated the air.

The Red Cross set up a shelter for the households who had to evacuate, of which there are believed to be more than 100.

“There is nothing more important to Pinova than the safety of the neighborhood, the safety of the employees and the safety of this community,” said Mark Johnson, an attorney with Gilbert Harrel, the law firm

Frank Richardson is a lecturer of computer science at GC. He explained what he thinks needs to be understood about AI moving forward.

“The biggest thing that I think will need to be done with AI is that the hype that is given to it by researchers as to what it can do and what it is is far from the truth,” Richardson said. “The idea that we can basically simulate the human process — I think you have to understand that there are aspects to the human being that we which represents Pinova.

“I don’t think there was a whole lot more they could’ve done other than giving reassurances and being seen,” Brewer said.

Many GC students from the area had little concern at first.

“I think it is more of an instructional moment, where they can figure out what went wrong and prevent it from happening again,” Brewer said. “It is not necessarily super surprising, considering their day-to-day operations, and there is always a possibility of a factory that large that something can go wrong.”

“We will learn from this event, and we will do better moving forward,” said Johnson.

Officials closed the F.J. Torras Causeway, stopping traffic in both lanes going to and from St. Simons Island to Brunswick, leaving many either stranded on the island or don’t fully understand, that you can’t understand in a mathematically algorithmic mannerism.” unable to get back home.

As of now, the technological community has mixed feelings on how to proceed with the development of AI. It is likely that the scientists who have been working towards these breakthroughs for years are not going to be eager to halt their research or work under government oversight and regulation, no matter what big-name tech executives call for action.

“I think it was more a precautionary thing because of the amount of traffic that would have increased, and it could have caused a little more panic than needed if people had been on it and seen that amount of smoke,” Brewer said. “Precautionary, sure. Overdramatic, probably.”

The cause of the fire is still unknown, and the plant will remain closed until a full investigation can be completed by state investigators and the plant’s own team, leaving many employees jobless for the next few months.

“The plant is not going to reopen until we are 100% sure it can be done safely,” Johnson said.

“I think it’s a big change for Brunswick, and I think it will take a lot to rebuild it and get people’s jobs back,” said J.T. Good, a sophomore MIS major.